species under certain circumstances, and as a means of better fitting created things for their various uses, and not as the creator of the thing, nor in any sense the originator of the species. Variation is the quality of a species, and not its producer.

BROWNSON'S QUARTERLY REVIEW, April, 1864. (New York.)-1. The Giobertian Philosophy. 2. Stevens on Reconstruction. 3. Abolition and Negro Equality. 4. The Next President. 5. Reade's Very Hard Cash. 6. Military Matters and Men.

Dr. Brownson in his first article introduces us to the philosophy of Gioberti, which he considers as superior to any existing system in expounding the validity of the objective world, and the coequal authority as well as harmony of reason and revelation. Gioberti affirms that knowing is true knowing, because the knowing intuition is not "the product of reason, but really constitutive of it, creating man and enabling him to know by giving him à priori the faculty and the object of science." If man, then, really knows the external world, there is no demand for proving its reality. All the result any reasoning can give is attained without reasoning. If man knows his own self, the syllogism of Des Cartes, Cogito ergo sum, is superserviceable. Gioberti identifies reason and revelation by showing that "the intelligible and superintelligible" are not separate and two, but a lower and an upper ONE. In the following argument against Des Cartes Dr. Brownson furnishes an exact parallel to Edwards's celebrated reasoning against the freedomist's self-determining power, namely, that a will cannot freely choose without choosing to choose, and choosing to choose to choose, in endless series. "If the simple knowing is not to be taken as certain till it is confirmed by something more ultimate, the fact of consciousness itself becomes uncertain, for consciousness itself becomes uncertain; for consciousness, or what the schoolmen call the sensus intimus, is only knowing. How do we know that we know that we have the internal affection? I think, therefore I am. But how do I know that I think? I think I think. But how do I know that I think I think? Thus we go on questioning forever, and can never get beyond the simple fact of knowing."

English Reviews.

THE BRITISH QUARTERLY REVIEW, April, 1864. (London.)—1. Shakspeare. 2. Mr. Gladstone's Financial Statements. 3. Revealed Truth-Some of its Characteristics. 4. London Politics in the Thirteenth Century. 5. Trust Deeds and Religious Liberty. 6. Our National Sea Songs. 7. The Crawley Court-Martial. 8. The Privy Council Judgment. 9. On Degenerations in Man. 10. Foreign Affairs-Europe and America, THE CHRISTIAN REMEMBRANCER, April, 1864. (London.)—1. Africa and the Church. 2. Froude's Reign of Elizabeth. 3. Bishop Burnet and his Publications. 4. The Use and Abuse of Female Sentiment in Religion.

5. Memoir of Bishop Mackenzie. 6. New Zealand, as it Was and as it Is. 7. Intercommunion with the Eastern Church. 8. The Recent Judgment.

LONDON QUARTERLY REVIEW, (Wesleyan,) April, 1864.-1. Life in Deep Seas. 2. Robert Browning. 3. Bates's Naturalist on the Amazons. 4. The Ancestry of the Wesleys. 5. Captain Speke's Journal. 6. The Reign of Elizabeth. 7. Shakspeare. 8. Renan's Life of Jesus. JOURNAL OF SACRED LITERATURE AND BIBLICAL RECORD, April, 1864. (London.)-1. The Sepulcher in Sychem. 2. The Typical Character of David: with a Digression concerning certain Words. 3. Selections from the Syriac. No. I.-The Chronicle of Edessa. 4. Cornelius the Centurion. 5. The Trumpet of the Soul sounding to Judgment. A Sermon by Henry Smith. 6. Exegesis of Difficult Texts. 7. On the Nature of Man. 8. The Epistle of Barnabas: from the Codex Sinaiticus. 9. The Decipherment of Cuneiform Inscriptions Described and Tested. 10. An Inquiry respecting the Origin of the Parable of the Rich Man and Lazarus. 11. Water Supply of Jerusalem-Ancient and Modern.

The article on the Nature of Man has the following passage:

It may be worth while also to notice that what human nature is, is not in the least affected by any theory of the origin of species. The hypothesis, for example, of Mr. Darwin may or may not be compatible with the first chapters of Genesis, but it neither increases nor diminishes the nobleness of that human nature which belongs to existing men and women. The silly caricatures of Mr. Darwin's theory which have amused so many ignorant public meetings, and disgraced so many platform orators, bear no kind of resemblance to his theory itself. But if his wise and modest hypothesis were, in fact, the silly dogmatism which even the most ignorant bigot finds it quite easy to refute, it would make, not the smallest difference to human nature. It is quite easy to distinguish even the varieties of existing animals, and much more easy to distinguish (at least the most prominent members of) what have hitherto been considered the different species of animals. No one mistakes a grayhound for a terrier, or a lion for an oyster; and if man had been slowly developed from a sponge or a weed, by a process of which even the very traces have been obliterated in the course of innumerable ages, he would still be man, and not either a weed or a sponge. In a word, what we are is not altered by the remotest of our antecedents any more than by the nearest; nor are the strength of body and robust intelligence of a full-grown man in the least dishonored by the utter helplessness of infancy. Whatever may be the physical difficulties of Mr. Darwin's theory, it has certainly not a single moral difficulty which is not to be found also in that region which lies between the germ and the maturity of each separate individual; and nothing can be more foolish or shortsighted than those angry discussions which at any rate seem to imply that the chief differences between a man and a beast are to be found not in his spirit, but in his body.-P. 77.

NATIONAL REVIEW, April, 1864. (London.)-1. The Apocalypse of St. John. 2. Felix Mendelssohn Bartholdy's Letters. 3. The Provincial Assemblies of France. 4. Ireland. 5. Charles the Bold. 6. The Races of the Old World. 7. The Germanic Diet. 8. Sterne and Thackeray. 9. Early History of Messianic Ideas.

The first article in. this able rationalistic Review decides that the Apocalypse is the work of the Apostle John, while the fourth Gospel is not. It holds that the Apocalypse is inspired with the elevated spirit of Christianity, but is a prophecy of the destruction of secular Rome by the advent of Christ then impending. The article on Races furn

ishes a historical survey of races from the Abbeville flint chippers early in the drift period to the present day. The article on Messianic Ideas, assuming that the extant book of Enoch was published before the birth of Christ, maintains that it exhibits the then existing state of the Jewish mind on the subject of the Messiah, and so shows how the New Testament grows out of them. It is more foolish than Renan's book.

German Reviews.

ZEITSCHRIFT FUR HISTORISCHE THEOLOGIE. (Journal of Historic Theology.) 1864. Third number. 1. PH. SCHAFF, History, Genius, and Significance of the Heidelberg Catechism. 2. LAURENT, The Moravians of our Days. 3. KAPP, the Christianization of Moravia. 4. WATTENBACH, The Religious Condition of Silesia under Austrian Rule. The tercentenary celebration of the introduction of the Heidelberg Catechism, the standard theological work of the Reformed Churches of Germany, Switzerland, Holland, and France, and their branches, the German and Dutch Reformed Churches in this country, has called forth quite a literature, especially in the German Reformed Church, which has celebrated that event with greater solemnity than any other branch of the Reformed Church. The above article of Professor Schaff is both interesting and exhaustive, as we are accustomed to find all the works of the learned professor, who, as a Church historian, has no superior among all the theologians now living. It treats after some introductory statements on the various editions of and the works on the Catechism-of the time, occasion, and object of its preparation; gives biographical sketches of Frederic III., Elector of the Palatinate, the patron, and Ursinus and Olevianus, the authors of the Catechism; then passes over to the history of its compilation, its publication, reception, and spreading; and finally discusses its significance and theological character, giving also the opinions of prominent theologians respecting its value, and comparing it with the catechism of Luther. A concluding chapter refers to the arrangements which the German Reformed Church of this country had made for the tercentenary celebration of the introduction of the catechism, in 1863.

STUDIEN UND KRITIKEN. (Essays and Reviews.) 1864. Third Number. 1. WIESELER, Description of the Codex Sinaiticus. 2. VILMAR, The Symbolic Significance of the Nazarean Vow. 3. LAURENT, Critical Remarks on the Epistles of the Apostle Paul. 4. ZYRO, Remarks on Hebrews ii, 14. 5. RIEHM, Review of Weiss's Johanneischer Lehrbegriff, [The Doctrinal System of the Apostle John]. 6. BINDSEIL, Review of the new complete edition of Calvin's Works, edited by Baum, Canitz, and Reuss.

In the first article Professor Wieseler gives a minute description of the peculiarities of the celebrated Codex Sinaiticus, as compared with

other ancient manuscripts of the Bible. He also refers to the history of the codex, and to the pretensions of the well-known Greek forger of ancient manuscripts, Simonides, who, in a letter to the London Guard ian, in 1862, made the audacious assertion that the Codex Sinaiticus was no old manuscript at all, but was compiled by him, Simonides, in 1839, from a modern Greek Bible, revised in comparison with some ancient manuscripts and the testimonies of the fathers. Wieseler regards the reply of Tischendorf in his pamphlet, Die Anfechtungen der Sinai Bibel, (Attacks upon the Sinai Bible, 1863,) as completely conclusive. With regard to the age of the codex, Wieseler agrees with Tischendorf that it cannot be fixed later than the fifth century, and that it even may belong to the fourth. Wieseler considers it probable that its origin is coeval with that of the Codex Vaticanus.

The author of the third article maintains that the chronological order of the Epistles of the Apostle Paul is as follows: 1. Second Thessalonians, from Berea, summer of 49. 2. First Thessalonians, from Corinth, 51. 3. Galatians, from Ephesus, 53. 4. First Corinthians, from Ephesus, 55. 5. Second Corinthians, from Macedonia, 55. 6. Romans, from Corinth, 56. 7. Philemon, from Cesarea, between 56 and 58. 8. Colossians, from Cesarea, between 56 and 58. 9. Ephesians, from Cesarea, between 56 and 58. 10. Philippians, from Rome, 59. 11. First Timothy, from Macedonia, 61. 12. Titus, during the voyage from Crete to Nicopolis, 61. 13. Second Timothy, from Rome, 63. The author gives at length his reasons for this arrangement, so far as the epistles to the Thessalonians are concerned.

JAHRBUCHER Fur Deutsche THEOLOGIE. (Yearbooks of German Theology.) 1864. First Number. 1. LAEMMERT, Contributions to a Revised Symbolism of Biblical Numbers. 2. WEISS, The Discourses contained in Matthew. 3. KLOEPPER, The Meaning of the Parable, Mark iv, 26-29. 4. STEITZ, The Signification of the Medieval Formula, "Obligare ad Peccatum."

Second Number. 1. The Question of Miracles Examined in the Light of Modern Science. 2. WEINGARTEN, Richard Baxter and John Bunyan. 3. AUBERLEN, Thomas Wizenman.

The fourth article in the first number treats of a medieval Latin phrase, the correct translation of which has long been a subject of animated dispute, and which has played a prominent part in the history of violent theological controversies. The constitution of the order of Jesuits contains this important passage: "Nullas constitutiones, declarationes, vel ordinem ullum vivendi posse obligationem ad peccatum mortale vel veniale inducere, nisi Superior ea in nomine Domini nostri Jesu Christi, vel in virtute obedientiæ juberet." Whoever is unacquainted with the Church Latin of the Middle Ages, and reads the above passage cursorily, will be tempted to translate it, "that no constitutions, declara

tions, or any statute of living, can involve an obligation to a mortal or venial sin, unless the Superior should command them (the mortal or venial sin) in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ or in virtue of obedience." Thus the distinguished historian Ranke, in his work on the Roman Popes, (Die Römischen Päpste, first edition, 1834, p. 220 ;) Reuchlin, in his classic work on Jansensism, (Port Royal, vol. 1, 1839, p. 38;) and Sylvester Jordan, in his work on the Jesuits, (Die Jesuiten, 1839, p. 63,) understood and translated the passage. But Ranke, in the second edition of his work, (1838,) abandoned this translation, and admitted that it was more reasonable to take, as the Roman Catholic writers have always done, this word "obligatio ad peccatum" in the meaning of "an obligation involving a sin," thus giving to the above the signification that none of the rules of the order so bind the members that the non-observance by itself involves a sin, but that a sin is committed only when a member violates a general order of the superior. Reuchlin likewise acknowledged his error in a new work on Pascal, (Pascal's Leben, 1840, p. 110.) One of the best German writers against the principles of the Jesuits, Ellendorf, (Die Moral und Politik der Jesuiten, 1840,) also gave the correct translation. Gieseler, in his great work on Church History, (vol. 3, ii, p. 535 seq.,) adduced a number of examples from medieval monastic works, to show that the phrase "obligare ad peccatum" was everywhere used in the signification of an obligation (the non-observance of) which involves a sin. Since then, nearly all the German writers of note put the right construction upon the phrase, except Professor Jacobs of Halle, who, in his pamphlet on the Jesuits, (1862,) took up the interpretation which Ranke had first adopted but afterward abandoned. Dr. Weicker, in his work on the School-System of the Jesuits according to the Statutes of the Order, (Das Schulwesen der Jesuiten, 1863, pp. 282-288,) gives an essay of six pages on the meaning of the phrase, in which he adopts himself the correct translation, though he gives so many arguments for the contrary opinion as to leave the impression that he considered the true meaning to be doubtful.

Dr. Steitz, of Frankfort, thinks it therefore opportune to examine again the meaning of the words "obligare ad peccatum" in the Latin of the middle ages; and he treats of the whole subject in so lucid and exhaustive a manner as to remove the last doubt about the true meaning of the Jesuitical phrase. But while he exonerates the Jesuits from a crime with which they have been charged through insufficient acquaintance with medieval Latin, he at the same time clearly estab lishes the dangerous and demoralizing character of the blind obedience which the superiors of the Jesuits, as well as those of nearly all the monastic orders, demand from all the members of these orders.